One Day
by azarathianscribbles
Summary: Terra reflects on her life before and since being released from the stone statue and has an oath for the future. Now includes a snapshot of Raven coming to terms with Terra's actions.
1. Cowardice

**Author's Note: Hi Everyone, I'm ThisIsWheretheNameGoes, a fellow Teen Titans fan who happens to be brand new to writing fanfiction. I'd love some feedback, just please no flames as this is my first story.** **Enjoy! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, but does anyone know if that position is available? I would like to apply.**

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><p>It probably doesn't surprise anyone, but when you're a statue, there's not much to do except think and reflect. Which I did, mostly on my past and all the mistakes I made. One detail always seemed to prevail.<p>

I am a coward.

I've spent my entire life running from my problems. I ran away from my home, ran away from the powers that I hadn't asked for and couldn't control, ran away from the monsters chasing me, and ran away from the only people outside my family who'd ever accepted me, the Teen Titans.

Move past that, the world says. Admit your shortcomings, and apologize to the people that you hurt. For a typical girl my age, that might mean confessing to cheating on that algebra quiz, telling my parents about my secret boyfriend, or apologizing after I spread those rumors. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly what could be called an average teenage girl.

For me, if I were brave enough to face my problems, I would have to apologize to an entire city for personally destroying it, admit to killing many of the civilian inhabitants of that city, and ultimately, ask my former teammates to forgive me for betraying them. Can anyone really blame me for being a coward?

When I was freed from my stony prison, I should have been thrilled, but I was too scared to rejoice in receiving a fresh try at life. If I was alive, that meant there was a chance that I would have to apologize to the Titans, a prospect that scared me more than Slade ever had.

I read about the event that freed me in the newspaper and heard about it in quiet whispers passed from person to person in Jump City. Raven had turned the entire city population to stone by accident when she fulfilled her prophecy and brought her demon father to Earth. When she defeated Trigon, she reversed the effects and everyone went back to normal, including me. I am amazed at the irony that Raven, the Titan who always knew the type of person I was, is the person responsible for freeing me from my existence as a statue. She, even more than my other ex-teammates, probably thought that I deserved what I got.

My greatest fear, seeing the Titans, came true. I was at the school where I had enrolled as a perfectly average student. It was a nice day out, so during class change I chose to walk to my next class outdoors. I was walking along, thinking about innocent things like homework, when _he_ saw me. Beast Boy. I had injured him far worse than any of my other friends. When I betrayed him, I broke his heart. Though at the time, the things he yelled at me that night at the abandoned theme park infuriated me, I have long since accepted that I deserved every word of it.

Sweet, sweet Beast Boy. After everything I'd done, he still cared about me and wanted me to rejoin the Teen Titans. I was never worthy of a wonderful boy like him, and I never will be. That is the main reason I chose to turn my back on that part of my life and act like I remembered nothing.

Pretending to not remember anything about the Titans or my past while Beast Boy sat in front of me begging me to was one of the hardest things I've ever done. As tempting as it was to drop the game and accept the invitation to reclaim my dream life, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I had hurt Beast Boy and the rest of the team too much to simply decide to walk back into their lives as if I'd never back-stabbed them. There was the risk of hurting them again, and I doubted that Beast Boy, if not the whole team, would be able to bear something like that. Not to mention, I still had minimal control over my powers, and physically injuring any of the Titans by accident would only remind us all of my stint as Slade's apprentice when I tried to kill them. The only reason I had the amount of control that I did during my apprenticeship was the suit through which Slade could control both my body and my unruly powers.

Now, though, I am preparing to leave Jump. I have a nasty feeling that Beast Boy will make himself miserable by watching the "Terra look-alike" as she goes about her business and long for the real Terra to be buried within her. The last thing I want is for Beast Boy to be upset; he has better things to do than think about the crazily unstable blonde who first captured his heart.

I am not just moving on for Beast Boy, but also for myself. After wracking my brains and searching the school library computers for months, I found someone who can help me. This person I found, he can help me learn to control my powers, and I know he won't reject me for past mistakes. In fact, he will probably greet me with open arms.

It's high time that I track down my brother, Geo-Force.

Geo-Force's powers are the same as mine; we got them after scientists experimented on us as children. Thanks to Google, I know that Geo-Force is a successful hero and an awesome geomancer. I haven't seen him in years, since before I ran away from home, but I know that he will be both willing and able to teach me how to control my powers, the same ones that devastated a city and turned me to stone. I also know that I can find him. I don't have a clue how, but if I focus I can tell where he is. Our common connection to the Earth and to each other has linked us together, I suppose.

The sun just finished setting on a pleasant day. I shoulder my backpack, pull on my gloves, and slide my blue-tinted goggles over my eyes for the first time in ages. It occurs to me that I'm wearing the same outfit I was when I met the Teen Titans. Taking a deep breath, I glance nervously around. No one is watching, which is a relief. I shakily step onto a medium-sized rock, and concentrate with every ounce of my being. Slowly, my rock rises. I miraculously manage to rise up high enough that I probably just look like a bird. I take a deep breath and will my rock forward. Thankfully, it complies. I quickly adopt a surfer stance; I know I'm not skilled enough to catch myself if I fall. I take one last look at Jump City and the famous T-shaped tower before turning to focus on the journey ahead of me.

In the few seconds that I wistfully looked back at Titans' Tower, I made an oath to myself. One day, I will no longer be a coward and I will be brave enough to own up to my terrible past. One day, I will not fight against my powers, but fight with my powers. On that day, I will be ready to return to Jump. I'll approach the familiar Tower on the small island in the city's bay, and I will knock on the Tower's door. When my former team answers, I'll say two words that they have deserved to hear from me for years. "I'm sorry."

**End**

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><p><strong>Did you enjoy it? Please review, I can use any suggestions that I get. Thanks!<strong>


	2. Waning Animosity

One rather typical day for the Titans, the team rose at dawn to blaring klaxons and spent the next hour chasing down Control Freak. After turning the pudgy criminal over to the proper authorities, they returned home to relax. Robin retreated into his layer, too obsessed with preventing crime to resume sleeping. Starfire settled down on the couch to watch _World of Fungus_ and was soon snoring peacefully. Cyborg returned to his room to recharge his batteries, but Beast Boy was nowhere to be seen. Alone in her room, Raven meditated to relieve her inner turmoil over the date. Though the others seemed not to notice, today was the anniversary of the Terra statue's disappearance. She could sense Beast Boy in the cave where Terra had sacrificed herself; his emotions were a tangle of grief and anger.

Raven gritted her teeth. No matter how many times she repeated her mantra, the blonde geomancer stayed lodged in her head. Her eyelids bunched at the memory of Terra's savage grin at her nose, eyes, ears, and mouth filling with mud, causing her to suffocate. Her demon immunology had saved her; Terra had assumed she was dead prematurely and left her to drown in the quicksand.

For a split second, Rage took advantage of the memory and Raven's eyes split into four crimson ones, but she reigned in the anger. Those events were in the past, and Raven's logical side reminded her Terra was not truly to blame for being brainwashed, abused, and physically controlled by Slade.

"Azarath metrion zinthos."

Raven reflected on the period directly after Terra had been petrified. The team had acquiesced to the carving of "Terra: A Teen Titan and True Friend" next to the statue, but that had been to appease Beast Boy, who harbored feelings for her at the time and believed it to be true.

She had, of course, searched for days to find an antidote to Terra's predicament, as she had told Beast Boy. However, she had done so to fulfill her civic duty as a hero of Jump City and out of pity for Beast Boy, not because of any fondness she felt for the geomancer. In fact, at the time, Raven thought, she probably would've just as quickly sent Terra to hell for what she had done to her friends as embrace her.

Earlier memories came flowing back. Raven chuckling together with Terra after having some fun at Beast Boy's expense, fighting villains side by side, and refusing to fight each other for the Master of Games.

The sound of an ornate vase shattering caused Raven to open one eye. The reason she avoided thinking about Terra was because of the whirling emotions the subject prompted, which promised her powers would misfire. The irony that she, the least accepting of Terra and the quickest to mistrust her, had freed the geomancer from her stony prison did not escape her.

Raven sighed. Beast Boy had spent weeks trying to convince the team that Terra was back when the statue had vanished, and she had faked skepticism alongside the others. However, she knew for a fact that Terra had rejoined the living and that her memories were intact, whatever façade she had presented to Beast Boy when he confronted her "clone". The geomancer's emotional aura was strong enough that Raven could feel it from several miles away, and the mystery girl at the local high school was indeed Tara, crown princess of Markovia.

She had never revealed this truth to Beast Boy, recognizing that telling him would ultimately cause him more strife over the blonde's lie to him. In a way, preserving Terra's secret was a gift to a girl who clearly wanted to forget the darkness of her past and start over.

Raven could understand wanting to forget one's inner demons, and she felt a stab of jealousy at Terra's seeming ease doing so. It must be easy to pretend to be someone else if you didn't have gray skin and purple hair. If she really wanted to, she could cast a glamour charm for the rest of her life, but the cost of that was worth more than anything she might gain from it. Besides, she thought, once again fighting back Rage, she was not a coward. Even if Terra wouldn't, Raven would face her own faults and fear.

Despite the geomancer's cowardice, Raven found that as time passed, she gained a deeper understanding of Terra's actions and the motivations behind them. She couldn't promise that she wouldn't have reacted the same way in Terra's situation.

In the last few years, Raven had come to forgive her former friend. She couldn't forget, but if Terra was to return, she would make an effort to accept her for who she was, not who she had been. Then again, an "I'm sorry I tried to drown you in quicksand and that I tried to kill everyone you care about and destroy the city you protect," would be appreciated immensely.

As Raven hovered in the lotus position, a small smile graced her lips. For however much Rage snarled for revenge, she had found the mercy within herself to begin forgiving Terra. Alongside that forgiveness, much to her surprise, came a sense of peace.


End file.
